Prisoner (Werewolf Marines) (15 page)

He was unsurprised that he didn’t pass
muster. In that, the sisters were exactly alike. Whatever they were
into, it wasn’t him. If he was less thick-skinned, he might have
been stung by the look of horror Echo had shot at her handler when
he’d accidentally made it sound like he was trying to set them
up.

Not that it mattered. DJ had more important
things to care about than whether his genetically engineered
assassin roommate wanted to jump his bones. He didn’t have time to
do any bone-jumping anyway. Not to mention how complicated that
would get, given that he meant to escape and she couldn’t
leave.

It was just as well she wasn’t into him. He
wasn’t into her, either, which made it all even more utterly and
completely irrelevant. She wasn’t at all the physical type he
preferred. Or the personality type, really. Though she was his
talking type, if there was such a thing. And maybe his musical
type. What were the odds that a woman who didn’t even recognize
Tagalog would like Gloc-9?

“DJ, Charlie,” Echo said loudly.

He jumped, realizing that she’d repeated
herself. He’d gotten so caught up in his own thoughts that her
first words hadn’t quite registered.

“Pleased to meet you.” DJ hastily shook
Charlie’s offered hand. Her bones felt brittle, her skin thin as an
old woman’s. He kept his grip loose to make sure he didn’t hurt
her.

Echo spoke to her sister as if DJ wasn’t even
there. “Mr. Dowling laid it out for you, huh?”

“Yeah.” Charlie glared up at a small hole in
the ceiling, where something had been dug out with a knife.
“Fucking asshole! I hope he gets hemorrhoids. And leprosy.”

Echo glanced around the apartment. “I don’t
see any new bugs. Sorry. If you want him to know what diseases you
hope he’ll get, you’ll have to tell him in person.”

“I hope he gets Ebola too,” Charlie
muttered.

“Dengue fever is a good one,” DJ suggested.
“They have it in Afghanistan. It causes excruciating joint
pain.”

For the first time, Charlie looked at him
approvingly. “I’ll add it to the list.”

“Let’s get lunch,” Echo said.

Charlie set the book she’d been holding down
on the table. The cover showed a woman with lots of cleavage
plastering herself to a man riding a motorcycle along a mountain
road. He wore leather pants, an unzipped leather jacket, no shirt,
and no helmet. She wore a crop top, a miniskirt, and no helmet. DJ
imagined the title:
Our Worst Road Rash Ever.
Or maybe
Future Organ Donors in Love.

Charlie grabbed a cane that leaned against
the chair and hauled herself up, and they walked out. She told him
what everything was as they passed through more anonymous corridors
and unmarked doors: housing, pass and ID office, bathroom, gym,
pool, disbursing and finance, human resources, and more housing. It
was weirdly similar to Camp Pendleton, though much smaller. And, of
course, evil.

“So people work here?” DJ asked at last.
“They’re not all prisoners?”

Echo made a hand gesture like she was
threatening to stab him. Then he realized that it referred to her
using a knife to extract a bug from the wall. Probably.

“No, most of them are just employees.”
Charlie spoke as if he’d asked a perfectly reasonable question.
“It’s like any top-secret agency. They have to sign documents
swearing that they’ll never tell anyone anything, not even who they
work for. The pay is good. And they know that if they did spill the
beans, well…” She looked meaningfully at Echo.

Echo pretended not to hear the entire
exchange. DJ wondered if she ever had been sent after some
disgruntled or greedy or disillusioned employee. He couldn’t
imagine her voluntarily killing a whistle-blower, but if she was
told that she had to do it or they’d take it out on Charlie…

“Mission Cafeteria accomplished!” Charlie
announced, and threw open the door.

It was like a Marine commissary, only
smaller. And with superior food. Not to mention the coffee bar.

“Hi, Jamie,” Charlie said to the barista.
“How’s it going?”

“Not bad.” He fixed her a mug of pink
lemonade without her having to ask.

DJ put in his own order, unable to resist
adding, “How do you get to be a secret agent
barista
?”

Echo kicked DJ’s ankle, but Jamie only
smiled. “I answered an ad, and I’m not an agent. I just work
here.”

“And if you tell anyone where you work…?”

This time DJ got an elbow in the ribs.

“She’ll kill me,” Jamie said, jerking his
head at Echo. “So I say I’m a barista at a company that makes parts
for air conditioners. The pay is good, the benefits are great, and
every now and then I get to see someone turn into a wolf. It’s the
coolest job I’ve ever had. By far.”

DJ took his espresso and started sucking it
down as he waited in line for his food. As always, the caffeine hit
made him more relaxed, not more jittery. Maybe that was related to
the way that being startled by the recorded gunshot had made his
heart beat slower rather than faster. He never felt as calm as he
did when he was in combat, not even when he was a wolf or
half-asleep. Just another way he wasn’t wired quite like everybody
else.

As he stacked three steaks on his plate, he
decided not to mention his peculiar relationship with caffeine to
Dr. Semple. Let her lose her chance at a Nobel because he withheld
vital information. DJ didn’t intend to deliberately fuck with her
experiments, in case she caught him and took it out on Roy, but he
wasn’t going to volunteer anything, either.

No one spoke to Echo other than to ask her
what dressing she wanted on her salad, but Charlie seemed to be
buddies with everyone. When they went into the cafeteria, Echo
started to head for an empty table in the corner, but Charlie
pointed to an occupied one, where two men and three women sat
eating.

DJ had already noticed it. A black wolf
crouched at the feet of the older man, eating raw meat from a bowl
on the floor.

“DJ, you should meet the pack,” Charlie
said.

He let her lead him over, uneasily aware of
Echo’s silent presence beside him… and of the black wolf. A tame
wolf— an animal? No werewolf would eat off the floor like a dog,
except maybe as a joke. But no one was laughing.

The black wolf jerked up his head, blood
dripping from his muzzle. DJ felt a touch on the pack sense.

He was so startled that he nearly dropped his
tray. For a split second of joy, followed by a split second of
fear, he thought a member of his family was at the base. Then he
reached out, and found a presence he didn’t recognize.

It was eerie. Bonded packs could only
communicate with each other. Unbonded werewolves could reach out to
anyone, but their touch was uncertain and weak. This presence was
strong and wild, wordless and feral. It was what DJ would imagine a
true wolf— an animal— would feel like, except that true wolves
couldn’t talk to werewolves. Nobody knew if true wolves had some
version of the pack sense with each other, though DJ had always
figured they probably did.

The wolf pushed harder at the pack sense, in
a distinctly aggressive gesture. DJ’s mental shields went up so
fast that the wolf’s head jerked up, his lips curling away from his
gleaming fangs. DJ braced himself, ready to shift or fight, but the
wolf’s head lowered and his tail went between his legs.

An animal with the pack sense— another
genetic engineering experiment?

DJ looked into the yellow eyes of the wolf,
and felt a creeping disquiet that was halfway to fear.

Echo clapped him on the shoulder. This time
he did jump. She grabbed his tray before anything could spill.
“You’re too quiet. It’s making me nervous. Say something.”

“You’re weird,” DJ said promptly. “Normally
people tell me to
stop
talking.” He addressed the table.
“Hi, I’m DJ Torres. My scent name is Lechon, my power is strength,
and I’m a kidnapped US Marine.”

Echo’s elbow smacked into the exact place on
his ribs she’d hit last time.

“Ow. Pick a different target next time, that
one’s getting sore.”

“That’s the idea,” Echo said.

“Echo!” Charlie snapped. “Stop hitting
him.”

DJ opened his mouth to say that he didn’t
really mind. Marines roughhoused like that all the time. So did
wolves, nipping and tussling at each other. It made him feel at
home.

“It’s not fair,” Charlie went on before he
could say so. “He can’t hit back.”

“Sure he can,” Echo said, shrugging.

DJ’s elbow instantly found its mark on her
ribs. Charlie stared at them, her mouth half-open with what looked
like genuine alarm.

“It’s
fine,
Charlie.” Echo spoke with
an edge in her voice. “He’s not hurting me. Don’t be such a mother
hen.”

“That wasn’t what I—” Charlie broke off,
shaking her head. Then she turned to the table. Since DJ and Echo
had failed at introductions, Charlie took over, “DJ is Echo’s new
partner. He’s a born wolf. DJ, this is the pack.”

DJ stuck out his hand to the closest person,
a blonde woman in a business suit and, oddly, white gloves.

She leaped backward, knocking her chair over.
“Don’t touch me!”

At the same time, Echo grabbed DJ’s shoulder
and yanked him away. “Don’t touch her!”

DJ looked from one woman to the other, Echo
hovering over him protectively— that was nice, she
did
have
his back— and the gloved woman with her eyes wide with horror.

Made wolf. Gloves. Right.

“Your power’s fucked, huh?” DJ asked. “What
is it, a death touch?”

The blonde woman righted her chair, took a
deep breath, and answered calmly. “In a way. Anyone who touches my
skin has a severe allergic reaction. Like a peanut allergy. It
could kill you. We all carry EpiPens, in case someone brushes up
against me accidentally.”

“That’s too bad. I guess you spend lots of
time as a wolf.” As soon as he said it, he hoped he hadn’t put his
foot in his mouth, in case she was one of the rare people whose
powers carried over to their wolf form.

To his relief, she nodded. “Yeah. But don’t
feel too bad for me. I was dying anyway. I got the flu and
accidentally overdosed on Tylenol. It destroyed my liver. I ended
up in the hospital with three days to live. Two days in, Mr.
Dowling and Emmett showed up. Oh, and I’m Amber Killeen, formerly
with Homeland Security. Pleased to meet you.” In lieu of a
handshake, she bobbed her head.

When she didn’t go on, DJ prompted her. “And
your scent name is…?”

“Oh,” she said, seeming surprised. “It’s
Sangria.”

The white man with graying hair stood up.
“I’m Emmett Anderson. My scent name is Oak, and my power is to
attract prey animals.”

DJ shook his hand. “That would’ve been great
for your pack in the old days. You’d never have to worry about
feeding the pups.”

Emmett yanked his hand back like DJ had told
him his power sucked and he was a fucking loser, then sat down with
no further explanation.

What did I say?
DJ tried to
telepathically beam at Echo, but she was busy giving Emmett a
lethal glare.

Weird.
And Amber hadn’t even known to
tell him her scent name. Maybe the entire pack was made and had
never had anyone to teach them wolf traditions beyond the existence
of scent names.

DJ wondered if Roy remembered his own scent
name.

The Indian woman bounced up. “Pushpanjali
Malakar, former FBI. I go by Push. My scent name is Campfire, and
my punch can shatter concrete.”

“That’s badass,” DJ said admiringly.

“I know!” Push grinned at him.

The woman with the black eye patch and
scarred face didn’t stand; she had braces on both legs and a pair
of crutches leaning on her chair. But she held out a strong-boned
hand. “I’m Guadalupe Cordero. Mechanic. I’m a
veteran
—”

“Marine,” DJ said with her. He’d guessed from
her bearing and her regulation knot of braids that she had some
kind of military background, and he’d known which one as soon as
she hadn’t said “former.” “Military police?”

She nodded. “I got blown up by an IED while I
was on vehicle patrol. They had to shoot me full of stimulants just
to get me conscious enough to understand what I was being offered.
The healing didn’t work 100%, but I probably wouldn’t have made it
at all, otherwise.”

Echo poked DJ, right in her favorite spot on
his ribcage. “How’d you know what her job was?”

“Women can’t be infantry, so that’s where
female Marines go if they want to see combat.”

“Or in helicopters,” Guadalupe said. “But I
wanted to be on the ground. As for my power, it’s easier to show
than tell.”

She pointed to the ripe plum on Amber’s
plate. “See that?”

“Sure.” DJ eagerly waited for it to explode
or spontaneously combust or even disappear.

Guadalupe stared hard at it, but nothing
happened. Then she opened her hand to reveal a small lump of yellow
stuff oozing liquid on to her palm.

At first DJ couldn’t figure out what it was.
Then he realized. “Is that…?”

“Yup.” Guadalupe dropped the lump to her
plate, picked up the plum, and sliced it in half with a paring
knife. Juice poured out from the hole that had opened up near the
pit.

DJ caught himself pressing his fist to his
chest like he’d been hit by shrapnel and was trying to hold back
the blood. He removed his hand and let it fall to his side, fingers
open. He was an automatic rifleman. Guadalupe’s power was no
different from what he did with an M-16. It just
seemed
more
gruesome.

“What’s your range with that?” DJ asked,
trying to sound matter-of-fact.

“I have pinpoint accuracy within fifty
meters, and I can hit a general area at ninety,” Guadalupe replied
calmly.

A general area
, DJ thought, unable to
help wondering if she meant that she couldn’t target a specific
person or that she couldn’t target a specific body part.
Right
into her hand.